If you happen to be one of those hunters who live and breathe chasing gnarly whitetails, you no doubt love listening to old-timers telling stories about hunts they enjoyed years ago. As I get older, almost all of my early grade-school memories have faded. However, the few memories of those days that still burn most vividly in my mind come from stories told when I was sitting at the foot of my grandfather's chair, totally mesmerized by his tales of deer hunting in Wisconsin's North Woods. When my grandfather began cutting his teeth on deer hunting in the early 1900s, deer were virtually nonexistent in central and southern Wisconsin. But pheasants and cottontails ran the land in abundance. Even though my grandfather's farm was on the fringe of northern Wisconsin, if you wanted to shoot a deer back then you had to head to the "North Woods." Ironically, even though deer populations are now much higher in the central and southern portions of the state, the tradition of going north to rifle hunt is still practiced religiously by many Wisconsin hunters today.

A FAMILY OF HUNTERS
Joe Haske's family was one of those large Midwestern families that had its roots firmly planted in Wisconsin's hunting tradition. As Joe and his four brothers grew up in central Wisconsin in the 1920s and '30s, they didn't have any deer to chase on the family farm. So they did what any other "respectable" kids of their time did. They hunted small game with a vengeance!

"We loved hunting cottontails," says John Haske, the lone surviving Haske brother who now is in his 90s. "Back then, we believed that hunters who sat on stumps and waited for a beagle to chase the rabbit by weren't hunters at all. If you were a good hunter you went after them on foot.

"There were a lot of cottontails around in those days," John continues. "I remember going out hunting with two of my brothers one morning. In those days, the limit on rabbits was 10 apiece. Before noon we were back home with our 30 rabbits. That wasn't uncommon at all.

"And Mom made the best rabbit," John adds, almost salivating in his words. "She'd put 'em in a large cast-iron skillet and slow cook 'em until they almost fell apart on their own. Since it was winter, the ones we didn't eat on any given day would be frozen outside and eaten later. The Haskes always ate what they shot. We loved hunting everything we could and not a scrap of meat ever went to waste!"

AN EXPANDING RANGE
The winds of change were blowing strongly in Wisconsin in the 1940s. The whitetail's range had been expanding for years and viable hunting populations now covered most of the state. As one would suspect, central Wisconsin was well ahead of the southern areas. Due to close proximity to the North Woods, deer populations were becoming firmly entrenched on many of the Wood County farms that the Haske boys had access to while growing up.

By 1945, brothers Frank, Herman, Joe, John and William Haske were all serious and proficient deer hunters, most having hunted for a number of years in Wisconsin's North Woods. By now they were also married and owned farms of their own. As the deer population grew in central Wisconsin, the brothers started hunting closer to home. Just like they had done while rabbit hunting, they hunted on foot while pushing local woodlots. Like so many hunters of their era, they perfected the five- to six-man deer drive. One or two men would serve as standers while the others in the group pushed wooded areas. And just like their success with rabbits, they consistently filled their buck tags.

Though the driving force behind the hunt was still firmly rooted in providing food for their families, no one objected to seeing or shooting a buck that happened to possess some impressive headgear.

"I don't know why we wanted to shoot big bucks," John Haske admits. "Younger ones were so much better eating than those tough older bucks. We were always happy to shoot younger ones, but we really liked getting the big ones with big antlers, too."

A BUCK TO BEAT THE BAND
With that in mind, one can only imagine the excitement both John and Roger, Joe's then 17-year-old son, must have felt when they saw a magnificent buck in velvet during the late summer of 1945. In fact, that was a very historic summer for all Americans. In early August atomic bombs had been dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan had surrendered on Aug. 15, ending a long, gruesome war. It must have been a surreal time for the Haske family, and the prospects of the upcoming deer season must have been a pleasant distraction.

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